LaTeX

First lets get this out of the way. Some people absolutely hate [math]\mathrm{\TeX}[/math] and/or [math]\mathrm{\LaTeX}[/math] . And yes, there have been studies published that show writing documents in [math]\mathrm{\TeX}[/math] takes longer than writing in Microsoft Word.

I am one of those subset of people that actually like [math]\mathrm{\TeX}[/math]. The ability to properly format mathematical equations is without parallel. [math]\mathrm{\TeX}[/math] has a shallow learning curve, but with time and experience you can do some amazing things with it. It also gets away from WYSIWYG formatting and allows you to focus on the content of what you are actually writing rather than how it is formatted (which is a subtle point that is not apparent at first when you are struggling with leaning new commands). ... (to be continued).